As the dust settles on another memorable edition of road cycling’s toughest single-day race, Mathieu van der Poel will undoubtedly be rueing his team’s decision to run prototype pedals on Jasper Philipsen’s bike.
Following a puncture in the infamous Arenberg trench, van der Poel looked to quickly rejoin the lead group by jumping on the bike of his key lieutenant, Philipsen, only to find himself unable to clip in to the bike’s prototype Shimano road pedals.
With the team car nowhere in sight, van der Poel despondently returned to his own bike – which, in the meantime, had been fixed via a wheel swap from another teammate – only to puncture again before the end of the segment and lose yet more time.
Although the Dutchman was eventually able to get mechanical service from his team and rejoin the fray, the energy expended during the chase back on naturally cost him dearly in the finale.
At face value, then, the pedal problem looked to have ended van der Poel’s chances of taking a fourth consecutive victory at Paris-Roubaix.
According to his team, though, the truth is more complex.
A “very stupid” decision
Speaking to IDL Pro Cycling and Sporza in the aftermath of the race (which was won by Visma-Lease a Bike’s Wout van Aert), Alpecin-Premier Tech’s team manager, Christoph Roodhooft, admitted the decision to use two pedal systems was “very stupid”.
When questioned why the team had allowed the situation to occur in such an important race, Roodhooft admitted he simply didn’t think about it in advance, because the team has been testing the pedals in and out of competition for a number of months already.
“You can say that in hindsight. Mathieu also rode with them [the new pedals] briefly at the start of the season. I had promised to use those pedals in competition as well," Roodhooft said.
“Of course, that all came together at an incredibly bad time. I never would have thought that. Now it comes down to the pedals, but there was a long build-up with other things.”
Roodhooft also noted that other Shimano-sponsored teams, such as Team Picnic–PostNL, are testing the new pedals and every team that uses Shimano pedals will be on the new ones soon.
He also hinted that, although the new pedals may be designed for updated SPD-SL cleats, they were also supposed to be backwards-compatible with existing ones, such as those van der Poel was using.
“We were stood still for over a minute”
It’s fair to say that, while the pedal-compatibility issue clearly cost van der Poel precious time against his rivals, there were other factors that played a significant role in turning a simple puncture into something disastrous.
For a start, Roodhooft noted that van der Poel’s team car had been held up at the entrance to the Arenberg sector by a crashed rider from another team and the race doctor’s car.
“We were stood still for over a minute. Behind us, the peloton came through and was able to pass. So the peloton was back between us and the lead group at that point."
Given this, the team car couldn’t reach van der Poel to offer him mechanical service as quickly as usual.
In contrast, although van der Poel’s key rivals, Tadej Pogačar and Wout Van Aert, also suffered punctures throughout the race, both were able to receive service from team cars and rejoin the race more quickly.
On top of this, Roodhooft said team staff had, “for the first time in history”, been banned by race organisers from standing with spare wheels by the side of the road in the Arenberg sector.
That ban affected all teams, of course, but not everyone was unlucky enough to puncture at that crucial point of the race.
What does Shimano have to say for itself?
As Roodhooft rightly points out, Alpecin-Premier Tech is, as a Shimano-sponsored team, obliged to test prototype equipment in race situations.
Given this, some blame may lie with the Japanese component brand if it had indicated to the team that the new pedals are backwards-compatible with existing cleats. But that’s speculation at this point.
Nevertheless, if the pedals are supposed to retain compatibility with existing cleats, Shimano clearly still has work to do before they are released publicly.
Unsurprisingly, Shimano didn’t reveal anything about the new pedal. Instead, it told us that it is “continually developing new products and evaluates the performance of our products based on valuable rider feedback”.
“We do not address rumors, speculation, or unverified information about our products however, regardless of whether they are currently in development or not," Shimano added.
Clearly, such a high-profile incident won’t be forgotten quickly by riders or fans, and when the new pedals eventually land, cleat compatibility will be the question on everyone’s mind.
